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Bible Reading 2

Filed under: Christian

Why hello.

So I’m now on day 8 of the bible in 90 day’s schedule. Its been a bit heavy reading at the moment as we have reached Leviticus.
Though I’m finding it hard to read. It’s also very interesting.

The book of Exodus was very interesting. It was the rescue of the Israelites from the Egyptians and their first while in the desert. It’s amazing to read the story of God’s provision for the people and how the people reacted.

The end of Exodus starts the laws for the people. The famous 10 commandments. I was amazed to find out that “Thou shalt not lie”* doesn’t exist in the list. It says:

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. -Exodus 20:16 (NIV)

Which (to me) means more about lying about another person. Like saying they are thieves when they are not. It is interesting, almost in this light its more against prejudice and inciting hatred. It also is about justice, in a court if you bring false witness, for any reason, you are tilting the balance either one way or the other.

The end of Exodus tells of the building of the tempary temple. God designs his dwelling place and tells Moses the exact specifications, then the people make it. God even says which people he wants to build certain aspects. The start of Leviticus goes through the rules for sacrifice:who, how, where, when and also what animals are clean and unclean. It really is very exact and strict but I believe the reason for this is stated in Leviticus 11:

For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy -Leviticus 11:44 (NAS)

to be holy. Holy means to be set apart. God wants his people to be for him as he is for them…

Reading the commandments and laws in Exodus and Leviticus led me into thinking about what commandments I should follow as a Christian. It is a common question that has existed since the first church. The “circumcision group” get a mention in the new testament for a group of Christians who believed circumcision was necessary, though they got quite a rebuke:

As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves! - Galatians 5:12 (NIV)

Yow! So what laws should we keep? Religious ceremonies? Sacrifice? or are we missing the point in doing so. Lets have a look at some New testament verses:

an expert in religious law, asked him a question to test him: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus said to him, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments. - Matthew 22:34-40 (NET)

So love is the greatest commandment. And all the laws depend on love. the implication here seems to be that, without love, there is no hope for keeping the law. Or (put another way) it is impossible to keep the law without love. This is repeated in Galatians:

My brothers and sisters, God called you to be free, but do not use your freedom as an excuse to do what pleases your sinful self. Serve each other with love. The whole law is made complete in this one command: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” If you go on hurting each other and tearing each other apart, be careful, or you will completely destroy each other. -Galatians 5:13-15 (NCV)

so the law is complete with loving your neighbour. There is also a warning in this verse at the end: if you don’t love you will completely destroy eachother.

Im going to leave the subject of the law there. If you need more read Galations as it seems to answer this question many times.

Another thing i noticed walst reading leviticus was in chapter 21, which is on the subject of rules for the priests.

” ‘The high priest, the one among his brothers who has had the anointing oil poured on his head and who has been ordained to wear the priestly garments, must not let his hair become unkempt or tear his clothes. -Leviticus 21:10 (NIV)

Now that may not seem that interesting yet. But it reminded me of something in the New Testament. It was during the trial of Jesus. They had just brought him to the high priest (Caiaphas) and are looking for grounds to sentance Jesus to death. They bring false witnesses but nothing adds up and then this happens:

Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” But Jesus remained silent.

The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”
“Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?”
“He is worthy of death,” they answered. -Matthew 22:62-66 (NIV)

This adds an interesting hypocrisy to the trial of Jesus. They are trying to find a place Jesus has broken the law, and is thus guilty of death, and end up breaking the law themselves. Even the high priest!

-Aidan

Footnotes
*it turns out later in Leviticus it states that the Israelites must not lie. (-Lev 19:11) Though this may be specifically for the Israelites to set them apart for God. I would like to state that I believe that lying is wrong and causes all sorts of messes.

Tags: Bible in 90 days, Exodus, Law, Leviticus

NET bible

Filed under: Christian

So i thought i’d post just a short note to say I’ve found a really useful bible reading site!

its bible.org. It features a translation called the Next (NET) translation. It’s a translation that i find readable and also (the best bit) is it gives running commentry on the translation. So it will explain why they translated a verse the way they did. Which is really helpful when clarifying what you are reading.

It is a great study tool i’d recommend. But if you are just trying to read the story of the bible, it may not be the best. I find myself getting very distracted by the commentaries and spend probably 50%-70% of the time reading those which is good if you are studying verse by verse.

Bible Reading 1

Filed under: Christian

Oh dude I’m on day 2 of the bible reading challenge on biblegateway. Its 90 days of 1 hour readings (ish) and you complete the whole bible.

Today’s reading was Genesis 17 to 27. It was pretty awesome! starting with circumcision and ending with Jacobs dream of the stairway to heaven.

I am a Christian. I believe strongly in the bible being the word of God, though saying that I don’t know if I could say I have read it all. So that is one of the reasons i started this challenge. And so far its been gripping, Its been challenging and its been interesting.

Some things i’ve been interested by are the fact that right in the begining with the trees in the garden God comands:

“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” - Gen 2:15-17(NIV)

He gives complete free will to eat of any tree. But then he warns about the tree. He’s not being a mean tyrant, he’s being a loving caring father! Right at the beginning! That’s dawned on me this time. Its like a father saying to his son: “you can play anywhere in the house, but if you play with the fireplace you will hurt yourself” (of course this isn’t perfect analogy).

Something that challenged me was the fact that Noah knew what unclean and clean animals were.

Of every clean beast you shall receive and take with you seven pairs, the male and his mate, and of beasts that are not clean a pair of each kind, the male and his mate -Gen 7:2 (AMP)

This is confusing because it is not until Leviticus 11 that the distinction between clean and unclean animals is made. Therefore we have a two* reasonable possibilities:

1. Genesis was written after Leviticus **
2. God told the laws of clean and unclean animals before Leviticus

I believe that the clean and unclean animals referred to here are not necessarily the same as those in Leviticus. I reason this because if you look at the passage in leviticus it says:

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Say to the Israelites: ‘Of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat - Lev 11:1-2(NIV)

So the clean animals the Israelites may eat are mentioned in lev 11. Its important to notice that people were not allowed to eat animals until after the flood (Gen 9:1).

So what did it mean by clean and unclean. Well if we look at what Noah did after the ark lands safely it all becomes clear:

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. - Gen 8:20(NIV)

So “clean” in Genesis 7 refers to an animal suitable for sacrificing opposed to the Leviticus 11 meaning of “suitable for eating”. It is very possible that God taught what the clean animals for sacrifice were.

Well that is all for today.
I would strongly encourage all Christians to read their bible. In this “challenge” I am reading 1 hour a day during the course of the day that’s 1/12 of my day to get to know God better. It’s well worth it.

-Aidan

Footnotes
*Of course there are probably more reasons but these two sum up my thoughts on the topic
**It is possible for this to be true as both are suspected to be written by Moses. But really it doesn’t matter they were all written under the holy spirit’s guidance.

Tags: Bible in 90 days, Bible study, Genesis, God the father